Better Than Its Reputation? Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Review & Commentary

With his one and only turn in the writer’s and director’s chair for the franchise, William Shatner partners with producer Harve Bennett to release Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in 1989, following three well-received films forming a loose trilogy. The year was a competitive one, with such iconic films as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman, Back to the Future II, and Ghostbusters II.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier has garnered some infamy. Movie tier rankers almost always place it in last place of the Trek films, new or old. Until the very recent release of the poorly received Section 31 film, it was the worst-rated Star Trek feature film on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, at 23% and 43% respectively.

People mostly remember The Final Frontier for its poor special effects, cheesy gags, and weak plot. But are those criticisms justified, and is there more to this film than its reputation alludes? Does The Final Frontier deserve this sour taste? Is it truly a bad film, or still a good film that just doesn’t meet up to the same expectations as others in the franchise?

Synopsis

The recently christened U.S.S Enterprise-A is dispatched to Nimbus III – the so-called Planet of Galactic Peace jointly created by the governments of Federation, Klingons, and Romulans to foster cooperation – when the top diplomats are taken captive.

The potential threat is amped up when a Klingon ship commanded by a captain bent on making a name for himself by engaging in battle with a Federation starship, especially one commanded by Captain Kirk – whom the Klingons consider a renegade, bears down on Nimbus III.

A strike team reaches the captives only to discover it’s a trap, intended to lure a starship to the planet by a zealot – a passionate Vulcan named Sybok – who is on a quest to find God, believed to be beyond the great barrier at the center of the galaxy. It turns out Sybok is the long-lost half brother of Spock, each of them having Sarek as their father but with different mothers. Sybok is no ordinary Vulcan. He is an outcast who embraces emotions, against established Vulcan society. He weaponizes his Vulcan telepathic abilities to brainwash followers.

After an attempt to stop Sybok fails, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are tossed into the brig while Sybok begins to manipulate the remaining Enterprise crew for his cause. Scotty engineers a successful jailbreak of the trio, but they don’t get far before Sybok intervenes. Sybok attempts but fails to convert them to his cause.

Easily breaching the previously unbreachable barrier, the Enterprise enters orbit of a planet. Sybok returns command to Kirk, who coordinates a landing party to explore the planet. An idealistic heavenly paradise quickly turns into a hellscape, and an ominous being appears resembling a stereotypical god, a being with one voice but many faces.

Kirk is perplexed when this godlike entity demands the use of the Enterprise, and when asking that simple question we learn that this is no respectable god. Vanished long ago to the isolated planet, the powerful being seeks to break from his imprisonment. Sybok realizes the dire situation is his fault, sacrificing himself for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to escape.

Critique

The main criticism of The Final Frontier targets the special effects, which unfortunately weren’t produced by industry giant ILM. The reasons cited for using a different production house include both budget and scheduling conflicts, with ILM tied up in several other productions. Certainly, the special effects can’t match the perfection of ILM. But are they actually bad, or just not great? One thing that I think everyone would agree with is that the shots are simplistic and basic. The shot of the shuttle landing on the surface really is horrific. The Enterprise approaching the barrier is also a bit rickety. But there are some shots that aren’t necessarily bad, which I would take over some of the garbage CGI we see today. I’ll take simple and basic over the noisy and constant fast-paced movement any day. The use of obvious projections for the godlike entity is also a miss, making those scenes feel like something produced decades earlier. Although, modern green screen can look just as fake at times.

Aside from the special effects, common criticisms involve the plot, and relatedly the antagonist Sybok. Most criticism focuses on the film appearing on the surface to be a search for God, when that isn’t completely accurate. In fact, William Shatner was partially inspired by the rising popularity of televangelists, almost offering a satirical perspective on the growing movement. It’s not the Enterprise in search of God, it’s a zealot who manipulates followers and steals the Enterprise searching for who he believes is God, who we learn is not in fact the God he seeks.

The most glaring fault I agree with is making Sybok and Spock half-brothers, when this was never mentioned before or since in official cannon. They could have just as easily made a personal connection without it being literal, such as being close colleagues during their youth. Something similar to this unfortunate plot hole returns in Star Trek: Discovery with the character of Michael Burnham.

Another common criticism is Kirk’s ordering Spock to kill Sybok when he had a gun pressed point-blank against Sybok’s chest. Some have argued this was out of character of Kirk, but lethal action against a potentially dangerous invader to protect his ship and crew seems justified to me.

There are other obvious plot holes, but they are nitpicky and don’t, I feel, severely impact the film.

Apparently, the Enterprise grew by about 55 decks and reversed the order of the deck numbering where deck 1 is now at the bottom of the ship instead of the top, which is long established. It’s a minor critique in the grand scheme of things, but something that bothers Trek fans.

In another, the quick traversing from Earth to the Neutral Zone to the center of the galaxy is a glaring plot hole. Those are journeys that would take years. The ease of breaching the dangerous barrier that “no one can survive” is anticlimactic and lazy.

The obvious reuse of sets from The Next Generation is an annoying budget cutting move. While those sets themselves are redresses of sets originally built for the abandoned Phase II television series in the late 1970s, retooled for the feature films, they were heavily modified for The Next Generation series. They don’t even attempt to redress them for The Final Frontier most of the time, especially the corridors. The sets are like two different disjointed eras imperfectly merging, they don’t match the design of the sets built explicitly for the Enterprise-A. The carpet, the doors… all unchanged. Sickbay and the Transporter Room are obvious reuses, with barely any modification; and, I’m not entirely sure, but the forward observation lounge appears to be a redress of Ten Forward. If it is, it’s one of the few examples of effectively redressing a set. The bar from Ten Forward also appears to have been used as the bar in Paradise City. The subsequent film, The Undiscovered Country, also reuses several sets from The Next Generation, but takes greater care in altering them so it’s less obvious.

The Enterprise bridge set, a film-original, is an improvement over the one used for the past feature films. It’s brighter, bigger, and introduces a primitive version of the LCARS interface and accompanying okudagrams that are now iconic.

There is wasted potential of some major guest actors, chiefly David Warner – one of the best actors of his time, who thankfully has other, stronger Trek appearances.

Better Than It Appears

I won’t pretend that The Final Frontier is the greatest film or that it doesn’t have its faults. Even I would rank it low on a tier list, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad film. It only means that it doesn’t meet the caliber of exceptional films in the franchise. It has some excellence that is worthy of praise, and I truly enjoy it.

The film’s theme is one about faith, or challenging one’s faith… distinguishing what is real and what is fantasy, or a “dream,” as referenced in the lyrics from “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” sung by the trio at the campsite early in the movie and quoted later in the film (scene). Trek encouraging its audience to challenge common-held beliefs is common, as is the concept of a false god. It never disqualifies the possibility of a god – in fact, Kirk even ponders if god “really is out “there.” At the same time, the film doesn’t advocate for such belief either. People’s beliefs are their own, which the film respects, and the film examines what happens when we learn the reality of a strongly-held belief being contradictory.

The film teaches us that past mistakes make us who we are, and we lose ourselves without them. Its broader message is the importance of keeping an open mind, drawing on examples of geniuses once believed to be heretics for believing in something considered impossible in their time, only proven to be true since. It makes the audience wonder if Sybok is crazy, or truly a visionary, adding some compassion for his cause.

Let’s start with the easiest positive… the soundtrack. Composing his second Trek feature film, Jerry Goldsmith doubles down on the themes he introduced in The Motion Picture and carried into The Next Generation to deliver what may be the best soundtrack of all the Trek feature films. And I don’t just mean the iconic bombastic main theme, but in some of the softer pieces too. As an excellent composer does, he utilizes themes to match certain scenes – having a unique theme for the Sh Ka Ree scenes, as well as the familiar Klingon theme. There is an underlying theme that he uses throughout tying it all together.

I would argue that The Final Frontier captures the tone and character of the original series best of all the Trek films, and really understands the relationship between the Big 3: Kirk, Spock, and Bones. The campfire scenes are among the best scenes in the film. Their friendship is more candidly evidenced here than arguably in any other Trek segment – a friendship that parallels family. Kirk even calls Spock his brother, following a brief moment of the audience holding their breath thinking he’s referencing his actual brother, Sam – killed in an episode of the original series. Now, the alleged romance between Scotty and Uhura fails, which feels completely out of place. At one point they even try to explain it off as Uhura being under the effect of Sybok’s mind control, however there are scenes before even encountering Sybok where the romance is teased.

The comedy is up to interpretation. Yeah, it’s cheesy, but I tend to appreciate cheesy comedy so it works for me (most of the time). The comedic irony of Sulu and Chekhov – who navigate and plot the Enterprise’s course – being lost and unable to navigate Earth is hilarious. Perhaps the funniest gag is Spock being hung up on interpreting the literal meaning of the words from “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” (scene: are we having a good time?)

While some of the special effects don’t meet the gold standard of exceptional, other action scenes do. The shuttlecraft crashing into the shuttle bay at high speed is one such example. The crash is flawless, although some of the leadup scenes are examples of the film’s poorer special effects. The expanded scene with the shuttlecraft returning from the surface while a known cloaked Klingon ship lurks is one of my favorites of the entire film. There is even some minor comedy injected into it (scene: actually its my first attempt). The rescue team entering Paradise City is a great action piece, packed with the type of swashbuckling action we commonly witnessed in the original series. The effects and explosions here are top-notch.

While not as threatening as Khan or The Borg from the franchise’s most critically acclaimed films, Sybok works as an effective antagonist because he is driven by a precise motivation without an explicit desire to inflict harm. Charismatic, he’s a well-rounded antagonist performed exceptionally by Laurence Luckinbill. When we learn that his beliefs are disproved, one can only feel a little compassion for him, despite his bad deeds. Acting as a B-Plot, the Klingons are the film’s secondary antagonist, and arguably a bigger physical threat. The Klingon performances and depictions are excellent.

One great scene is when Sybok attempts to use his mental abilities on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to convert them into followers. The scene establishes some backstory and offers insight into our trio of main characters, and offers some great acting opportunities for the actors. In fact, it may be DeForest Kelly’s best acting performance of the entire franchise when he’s reacting to the sorrow of his father’s death, his inability to use his advanced medical knowledge to save his father, and his regret in stopping his father’s artificial life support only weeks before a cure was found.

Something subtle that I think is overlooked is the strong attention to detail in directing this scene, with the barrier slowly approaching through the windows. Another example of this subtlecy is narrowing in on the monitor showing the Bird of Prey entering range, foreshadowing conflict as the crew is distracted.

Conclusion

Is The Final Frontier an exceptional film? No. Is it a bad film? No. It’s complicated to assess because it’s neither. Critics define it as a bad film mostly because of its comparison to great Trek films. It’s enjoyable to watch and the defects have been greatly exaggerated against the pros. While not even close to my favorite Star Trek film, I actually enjoy this film above some others that have garnered higher critical acclaim.